GippsTech’s guide to helping your business survive and thrive in this turbulent time
Learn more about our “COVID-19 Rapid Response Digitisation Suite”
In times of rapid change, businesses that can innovate and adapt quickly are the ones best placed to survive and thrive during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Our team at GippsTech understand the struggles that come with having to be agile and adapt quickly. There have been many instances over the past month where businesses which were previously in demand, are now struggling - such as restaurants, cafes and retail outlets.
We have put together a suite of services to help you adapt and stay relevant and in demand at this time!
Fortunately, many affected businesses are now eligible for government funding to assist them in setting up or enhancing websites and digital services to allow for continued trading. Our range of services have been designed and priced specifically to meet the guidelines and budgets of many of these government grants. If eligible, your business may be able to access these services at no cost to you.
Whatever your business size or industry, our suite of services outlined below may be able to assist you!
Read on to find out more information about each individual service on offer.
Retail website package - setting up an eCommerce store for your business
Restaurant and Cafe website package - setting up takeaway and deliveries for your business
Innovation consulting Package - adjust your business model to meet new demands
Healthcare businesses - adapting your services during COVID-19
Securing funding for your business - supporting our clients to access grants for our services
GSuite setup and training to support staff with remote work - help your staff get set up with IT systems and training to help them make the transition to remote working efficiently and productively
If you want to skip the formalities and get in touch with us right away for assistance in adapting and innovating your business, book a free consultation here!
Retail Website Package - setting up an eCommerce store for your business
For some retail businesses, the new restrictions on face to face store trading will see substantial short-term losses; with the rapid transition to selling online the only way to continue operations.
If you are a retail business, you may not have felt the need for a website or a strong online presence in the past. However, embracing technology and online trading will enable you to survive and thrive in this difficult situation.
The stark reality is, online retailing will gain market share through this time, as consumers are forced to purchase online. Even those who previously disliked shopping online are now learning to embrace it, so your business must do the same in order to survive. And whilst the COVID-19 pandemic will eventually subside, the transition to online shopping will continue to rise, so putting your business in a position where it is accessible and available to buyers in the comfort of their own home will be an immediate advantage in the future.
Whilst online stores such as Ebay, Amazon and Etsy have their appeal when it comes to a low cost solution, we recommend putting your time and money into your own professional website. If you look forward to the future goals of your business, having an online presence is very important when it comes to the trust of your customers in using your brand. In our Retail Website Package, we will provide you with a simple website which will include information about your business and your online store. The eCommerce online store functionality will be fully built out in the website, and it will even calculate delivery fees for you and will allow you to automatically manage stock inventory. Having your own website gives you control over your branding, design and SEO, and it can be customised and further enhanced in the future.
If you would like to read more about our Retail Website Package, view the article here.
Alternatively, if you would like to discuss how you can implement this website package into your business, book a free consultation with the GippsTech team here.
Restaurant and Cafe website package - setting up takeaway and deliveries for your business
With the shutdown of non-essential businesses across Australia, restaurants, cafes, pubs and bars urgently need to implement takeaway and food delivery services in order to remain in operation.
If you own a restaurant and cafe and have never done food delivery before, this can mean multiple frustrations and administration problems as you navigate their new normal. Some of these administration problems may include:
Staff taking orders and credit card payments by phone, resulting in pages of hand-written orders.
Mixing up customer orders.
Credit card numbers being written down wrong, or card information ending up in the wrong hands.
Losing track of which customers have paid, and which have not.
Setting up online ordering and payments for your hospitality business will allow you to continue trading, without the headaches! While some online ordering platforms such as Menulog or UberEats sound favourable, they charge a 14% commission on each order, which cuts the already low margins in the hospitality industry further.
Building your own website with an online ordering system lets you bypass the high commissions charged by Menulog and similar platforms, so we have set up a package to build you a high quality WordPress website for you in just a few days. We will provide you with a simple template website which will include information about your business, and all online ordering functionality will be fully built out in the website. It will even calculate delivery fees for you and will allow you to automatically charge customers based on delivery vs pickup at the time of order! By comparison, you will be charged a fee of 1.75% + 30 cents per transaction- a far cry from 14% commission charges; keeping more money in your back pocket!
If you would like to read more about our Restaurant Website Package, view the article here.
Alternatively, if you would like to discuss how you can implement this website package into your business, book a free consultation with the GippsTech team here.
Whilst the COVID-19 pandemic will eventually subside, the transition to online shopping and ordering will continue to rise, so putting your business in a position where it is accessible and available to buyers in the comfort of their own home will be an immediate advantage in the future.
Innovation consulting package - adjust your business model to meet new demands
With the rapid changes in the demands of businesses and industries over the past 30 days, your business will be best placed to thrive in these circumstances if it adapts to meet the current needs of your audience. We have seen instances over the last month where business models which were previously in demand are now obsolete, and other cases where businesses which were previously not accessed by certain populations have seen a spike in revenue.
The businesses most likely to have been affected by the crisis are those who:
Rely on face-to-face business
Rely on a local customer base
Already had slim margins
Have lean operations and resourcing
Have limited internal tech and innovation capabilities
GippsTech have developed an Innovation Consultation Package to help you pivot and adjust your business model or offerings to meet these new demands. Through innovating your business model and services, it is important to understand how you can continue to service previous or current customers within your new business model. By doing so, you are more likely to succeed as you have a network of warm leads who are ready to buy from you.
While the crisis has created many hardships and difficult times, it has also created space for new, innovative ideas to reach the marketplace. If you can tackle these new opportunities whilst still making best use of existing resources, people, intellectual property, systems and technology, then you are already steps ahead in pivoting to where you need to go.
If you would like to read more about our Innovation Consultation Package, view the article here.
Alternatively, if you would like to discuss how you can implement this service to expand your business, book a free consultation with the GippsTech team here.
Healthcare businesses - adapting your services during COVID-19
If you are a healthcare provider or allied health professional, you are probably wondering how your business can continue to support and assist the community while mitigating the spread of the virus at this time.
You don’t have to feel stuck if you run a business which primarily relies on face to face delivery. With some creative thinking and innovation, you can offer your services remotely via video conferencing. Telehealth has become a popular solution over the last month, and setting up systems to enable your staff to do consultations with patients or clients remotely will minimise the risk of infection for both parties, and is particularly important if you work with vulnerable people such as the elderly. Establishing telehealth for your business could include setting up video conferencing systems, updating your appointment booking system, and enabling online purchasing of products or services.
Your administration staff are likely experiencing a backlog of work and constant phone calls. By alleviating some of this pressure via automation of some key elements of your business, they can be better equipped to support your healthcare provider staff, and to assist your business to deal with this crisis at this time. Some improvements you could consider implementing within your business include automated appointment bookings (and cancellations) on your website; pop ups with COVID-19 service updates and information on your website; a Frequently Asked Questions section on the homepage of your site which can help patients answer common questions like your business opening hours and any changes to services without having to call your team.
If you would like to know more about how you can innovate and adapt your healthcare business, read the full blog here!
To discuss our Healthcare Provider Digital Innovation Package or ways you can get started on your own with these solutions, please book a free consultation with us here.
Securing funding for your business - supporting our clients to access grants for our services
With financial uncertainty prevalent at this time, you may be concerned about how they’re going to afford to access the digital innovation services that your business requires at this time.
There are a range of government grants that can be used to fund development of a website, digital marketing campaign, or software integrations to enable your business to deliver services remotely. These grants can also be used for our innovation consulting package, where we work with you to develop and test new services that there may be increased demand for at this time.
Our team at GippsTech have assisted over 30 businesses to apply for grants over the years, with a success rate of over 70% (50-60% is considered a good success rate for grant applications). While a government grant is never guaranteed, we’re happy to make our experience available to support you at no charge via our free consultations.
Some of the assistance we can offer your business include:
Providing a list of grants we are aware of that may be suitable for your business.
Discussing whether the project you have in mind is a good fit for the grant you’re considering applying for.
Providing a detailed project proposal and delivery partner experience statement that can be included in a funding application.
Providing a review and feedback on your completed application to assist in your success rate.
If your business is not eligible for current grants and funding, our team at GippsTech can support your business through offering payment plans or staged development plans on our range of services.
If you would like to learn more about how to secure funding for your business, and what’s involved in our payment plans and staged development plans, read the full article here.
If you would like to speak to our team about applying for suitable funding to assist in digitising and innovating your business at this time, book a free consultation here.
Setting up GSuite for your business - make the transition to remote working efficiently and productively
Making the transition to remote work doesn’t have to be frustrating and tiresome, even though it may seem that way if your staff aren’t used it initially.
Our team at GippsTech use GSuite to enable them to work productively and collaboratively from the safety of their own homes. GSuite offers a fantastic collection of applications and tools which can assist in your transition to remote work, and help ease your peace of mind in knowing that your staff are remaining productive while at home. It also includes lots of automation and time-saving features that can greatly increase staff productivity!
GSuite’s apps and tools include email, drive storage, calendar, collaborative documents and spreadsheets, and videoconferencing. This set of software helps you to connect with your staff and team, and work together as if you were face to face in an office. It’s simple to share documents and workflows, work together on a document with your colleagues, view each other’s calendars and continue important conversations.
GSuite offers a monthly subscription package which begins at just $8.40 per user per month.
This platform is entirely web based, which means you won’t chew into your harddrive storage with downloads, software or documents. At the same time, it offers offline syncing of files, so if your internet is spotty, you won’t even notice if it drops out while you’re working on a document.
GippsTech can help your team get GSuite set up to enable remote collaboration, and we’ve developed a training workshop to help our clients and their team members make the most of GSuite. Feedback from the first few clients to go through the workshop is that the things they’ve learned have immediately saved them many hours of admin work!
Workshop Inclusions:
How remote collaboration differs from the way of working you may be used to
High level overview of GSuite, each of the main apps and core features
Timesaving features you may not be aware of which can save you and your team hours of manual admin work over the next few weeks
Productivity recommendations and best practices that can save you hours of effort - for example, how to use GMail to never miss an email and always respond to urgent emails quickly, without spending all of your time on email.
Cybersecurity basics: introduction to keeping your business, your staff and your customers safe online. If you implement the recommendations from this course, you’ll be ahead of 95% of small businesses on cybersecurity.
How to get your business set up on Google Maps.
If you would like to read more about GSuite and its benefits for your business, view the article here.
If you would like to speak to us about signing up your team for a GSuite training workshop to improve your staff's efficiency and productivity, book a free consultation here.
We want to help and support as many businesses as possible through this time, and we understand the benefit of giving you access to advice and support whilst navigating these new territories and challenges.
If there are any particular services in our “COVID-19 Rapid Response Suite”, which may assist your business in adapting and innovating to this crisis, please get in touch with our team at GippsTech to book a free consultation.